“Barbie” emerges as a clear winner; accumulating a far larger audience than any other nominated movie, right after the arrival to the platforms, far surpassing Netflix’s nominee, “Maestro” by 45%. In the first 7 days since release Barbie (Max) was viewed by 4.1 million unique viewers, compared to Maestro’s (Netflix) 2.8 million. Especially pressing as, at time of writing, Netflix has more than double the amount of active users of Max in the US.
Plum Research presents analysis of Oscar nominees' streaming performance
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Dollars for Dolls, Barbie takes the Crown
“Barbie” emerges as a clear winner; accumulating a far larger audience than any other nominated movie, right after the arrival to the platforms, far surpassing Netflix’s nominee, “Maestro” by 45%. In the first 7 days since release Barbie (Max) was viewed by 4.1 million unique viewers, compared to Maestro’s (Netflix) 2.8 million. Especially pressing as, at time of writing, Netflix has more than double the amount of active users of Max in the US.
Of the 10 nominees in the Best Picture category, only five are currently available on the most popular streaming services: “Barbie”, “Maestro”, “Oppenheimer”, “The Holdovers” and “Killers of the Flower Moon”, while other films, like “Past Lives”, remain available only via pay windows.
Leading the set with 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director, “Oppenheimer” takes the crown for the most nominated film available on streaming at the moment. Following closely is “Killers of the Flower Moon”, with 11 nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Director, followed closely by both “Maestro”, nominated in categories such as Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay, along with “Barbie”, which secures nominations including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, both films boasting a total of 7 nominations each. Only Peacock has more than one Best Picture nominee in its library.
Source: Showlabs by PlumResearch. unique viewers in the first 7 days after release of films on streaming platforms.
While “Barbie” boasts an impressive 88% of favourable reviews by the specialised critics on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s “The Holdovers” that claims the spotlight with a remarkable 97% of positive critics’ reviews in the site. Despite this, in terms of on-platform popularity, The Holdovers managed just a 5% (first 7 days) share of Peacock users, compared to Barbie’s 11.4% on Max.
In other titles critical claim did seem to translate into streaming success, Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” claimed approximately 17% of its platform viewer share within the first week of release, surpassing the impact inside its platform even when compared to “Barbie”, which IMDb identifies as the highest-grossing film of 2023. It is widely speculated that Apple was unconcerned by poor box-office performance and internally is prioritising streaming success.
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Source: Showlabs by PlumResearch. Metrics of most nominated films available in Streaming platforms within 7-Day after their release. *Box Office according to Box Office Mojo.
Animation: Spider-Man swings to success
In the realm of animation, three out of five films are accessible on streaming platforms:: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”, “Nimona”, and “Elemental”.
Source: Showlabs by PlumResearch. Unique Viewers on 7-day after the release nominated films in the category of “Animated Feature Film available in streaming platforms.
The Spider-Man franchise’s latest instalment proves its dominance, attracting the most substantial audience, not only within the animated films category but also in comparison to the Best Picture nominees.
Netflix retains scale, with breadth of offer
Netflix emerges as the most relevant platform in terms of holding the Academy-Award favourites, with 11-nominated films in its library, showcasing its commitment to quality content across genres: in total Oscar nominated Netflix movies have been viewed by 87 million people until today on Netflix, with an average of 1.3 nominated movies per user.
Source: Showlabs by PlumResearch. unique viewers in the first 7 days after release of nominated films available on Netflix.
Aside from the popular “Spider-Man” animated movie, the Spanish film nominated in the “International Feature Film” category, emerges as the runner up on boasting a broader audience after its platform debut, with 9.8 million Unique Viewers within its first 7 days. As a third spot is the animated film “Nimona”, trailing behind with about half, 4.6 million viewers.
As the audience metrics are relevant, popularity does not tell the whole story. The completion rate provides a deeper understanding of the cinematic impact, reflecting the audience’s engagement with the movies:
Source: Showlabs by PlumResearch. Completion Rate on 7D after the release of nominated films available on Netflix.
Even though “The After” seems to take the crown, boasting a remarkable 90% of their first week’s audience completing the film, it’s worth noting it’s a short film of only 18 minutes long.
When taking a look at feature films, it’s the animated film “Nimona” that claims the top spot for engagement. With a runtime of 1 hour and 41 minutes, the Netflix Original starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed, has surpassed the engagement of highly popular and acclaimed nominees like “Spider-Man” or the one in the Best Picture category “Maestro”, achieving 81% of the 7-day’s audience to complete the entire film.
“Nyad”, a biographical film with nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, secures the second place, captivating an exceptional 76% completion rate to finish the two hours-length film.
In a surprising turn, only 51% of Netflix's Best Picture nominee viewers completed the film within the first 7-days of release.
On the flip side, the Chilean film “El Conde”, nominated in the “Best Cinematography” category, struggles with less than 45% of its viewers completing the film, showing an opposite relationship in the viewers’ preferences and the Academy technical criteria.
As the Oscars draw near, it becomes evident that popularity and engaged audiences do not always go hand-in-hand with critical acclaim, certainly when considering this year’s nominees.
However, the question remains as to how much this popularity then influences the ultimate winners.
The answer will be unveiled at the upcoming ceremony, slated for March 10th. Stay tuned as the entertainment world braces for an evening of groundbreaking triumphs; while Plum Research waits impatiently to deliver further analysis exploding the impact of Oscar triumph on popular viewership.
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Legend:
Average Time Spent [ATS/Metric]: the average minutes that content was viewed, which includes all views of a given piece of content by each profile for the given time period.
Share of Viewing [SoV/Metric]: is the percentage of all active profiles on the platform that watched at least 2 minutes of the given content.
Unique Viewer [UV/Metric]: a profile that has watched a given piece of content at least once for a minimum of 2 minutes.
Total Hours Watched [THW/Metric]: is the total time, in hours, that the given piece of content was viewed by all profiles consuming content.
Views [V/Metric]: the number of views that corresponds to the number of times a given content was watched. For example, if a Unique Viewer (UV) watches two episodes of a series in one day, this counts as two views.
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About PlumResearch
PlumResearch specialises in precise and granular audience measurement of streaming platforms and FAST channels. It has the world's largest online audience panels and provides its clients with insights from over 77 markets worldwide.
Through Showlabs — the proprietary platform created by PlumResearch – the company's clients can find out how shows and movies perform worldwide and track what contributes to their success. Showlabs provides clients with accurate data, in-depth insights, and a reliable customer support team.